The government's push for publishers to unbundle the sale of school textbooks and teaching materials was criticised as a failure yesterday as a newly released price list showed the cost of some books affected had risen anyway.
The government's long-standing tussle with publishers to end the practice of giving teaching aids free to schools but adding their cost to the price of textbooks is aimed at reducing the price of books. Publishers are to unbundle textbooks from other materials in phases.
But the new price list released yesterday showed that prices for some unbundled textbooks went up by 4 per cent, almost the same as for other textbooks.
Critics said prices could come down only through more participation by the government in the industry and using teachers to write the teaching materials now supplied by publishers.
'I have always had doubts,' former secretary for education and manpower Joseph Wong Wing-ping said. 'It's just like shampoo and conditioners being priced separately. Will they get cheaper?'
The development came a day after education chief Michael Suen Ming-yeung appeared to have scored a victory in his stand-off with the publishers when they agreed to release the price list. They had earlier withheld it in response to Suen's policy U-turn on Monday, easing what was previously a total ban on free teaching materials.